Sticks And Stones

Team Anna being asked to mind their Ps and Qs? A little rich coming from our oh-so-polite politicians!

WrittenBy:Dr. Ashoka Prasad
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“Any use of improper words against the Prime Minister is not acceptable. Members of Team Anna will have to exercise control over their language”, BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy. This was the headline in our mid-day newspaper, The Hindi Raag in Gorakhpur.

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I must say I was really touched with the reverence in which Rudy holds the Prime Minister. I do not have exact quotations available right now, but it would be interesting to go through some of the epithets his fellow politicians have used for Manmohan Singh. They are far worse than what Team Anna could have even thought of. And yet, I did not hear a single whimper of protest coming from either Rudy or his colleagues.

To be fair, even the BJP leaders have been subjected to some downright profane language from the Congress benches, some of which do not even bear repetition. The supposedly educated Mani Shankar Aiyar specialises in debasing the Parliament with his downright Billingsgate vocabulary. It has to be pointed out that he does not even spare his own allies when they even deign to question the Dulcine lodged at 10 Janpath. One does not have to strain one’s powers of recall to recapitulate his lingo for Sharad Pawar. He had called him a “worm” and a “racist” in a television programme. And let us not forget the downright vulgar epithet he employed for the widowed Sheila Dixit in an article in SUNDAY (during the time of the Narasimha Rao government) for which he was warned, not by the occupant of 10 Janpath but the much-maligned Press Council. I shall not even attempt to debase the site here by repeating what he had said on the occasion.

The government has an ally in Laloo Yadav. All of us have been observers of his unapologetic capacity to convert downright vulgarity into an art form. And to the best of my knowledge he has never uttered a single word of regret thus far, leave alone display any remorse or repentance.

And do I have to go over Amar Singh’s language for his opponents? Also, many of us are old enough to remember Kanshi Ram calling Mulayam a “gundon ka sardar” and Mulayam’s cronies retorting in the same vein. Some may not be old enough to recall the epithets the socialist icon, Ram Manohar Lohia employed for Nehru both in and out of the House.

Was it not the venerated Jyoti Basu who called Mamata a “chhagol” which means goat in Bengali. And how can we forget the language that the DMK personnel used for the AIADMK and how the latter reciprocated.

All this while, I have not even mentioned the language the opponents of Narendra Modi use for him. I am by no means a Modi fan and personally do empathise with some of the  anger that is directed towards Modi. But, by the same logic he is an elected Chief Minister and if the Prime Minister is entitled to insulation from political insults, so is he.

Bal Thackeray, steadfast BJP ally uses language that may make many squirm. And his target very frequently is Manmohan himself. I have not heard Rudy or other BJP allies comment on Thackeray’s vocabulary.

Only yesterday, we had the inept Samajwadi Party spokesperson Kamal Farooqi and the indecorous BSP spokesperson Bhadoria trade insults on TV. The vilest insults over what happened in the Legislative Chambers yesterday, only to be put firmly down by the journalist Sharat Pradhan who aptly demonstrated where each one was coming from.

If it is fair game for politicians to hurl vile abuses at each other, then the logical question that arises is why should others be restrained from using similar language? After all, they can plead that they are only repeating and endorsing what they hear day in and out from the politicians.

My point is that unless the politicians themselves agree upon a code of conduct as to what transgresses acceptable decorum, they have absolutely no right to comment on their constituents use of the language they employ themselves.

Team Anna would be well-advised to refrain from intemperate language as that indicates a descent into the very sleaze that they are trying so hard to fight. But it is odiously hypocritical on the part of politicians to raise any hue and cry over the perceived insult they face.

I shall try and provide an international context by citing some of the more popular global political insults, for people to contrast what happens in other mature democracies and in parliamentary portals here.

“Reckless with our government; reckless with his own future, position and place in history.” – Clare Short on Tony Blair
 
“It was absolutely stupid, a stupid, stupid thing to do. Part of the problem is that he lacks confidence. He is nervous.” – Charles Clarke attacking Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown

a – “You are the deals-on-wheels Prime Minister.”

b – “I have a big dossier on his past, and I did not even have to sex it up!”

– Michael Howard to Tony Blair
 
“A sheep in sheep’s clothing.” – Winston Churchill on Clement Attlee

“Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.” – Nikita Khrushchev

“His ego is fat on arrogance and drunk with ambition!” – Neill Kinnock on David Owen

“Being attacked by him is akin to being savaged by a dead sheep!” – Denis Healey on Geoffrey Howe

“Here is the Rt.Hon’ble gentleman with a smoking gun in the hand and a hole in the foot hopping around pleading that he did not know it was loaded!”  -Denis Healey on Geoffrey Howe

None of these insults even measure up to the profanities we are used to hearing every day. The sad part is that most journalists allow these insults on their TV programmes. One notable exception is the young and erudite Swati Chaturvedi who does not permit any loose vocabulary when she moderates and other anchors should take a cue from her.

I would be the first to welcome an acceptable code of decorum in political intercourse in India. But until that is agreed upon, I would scoff at politicians who adopt a self-righteous posture on this.

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